Couldn’t agree more @oriskany . I cut my teeth on the Panzerblitz and Squad Leader systems, and in roleplaying with Traveler, AD&D, and the accompanying Battlesystem rules that elegantly combined roleplaying and mass combat, something you are now familiar with 🙂 . Those games had their faults, but like you, I just changed any rules I didn’t agree with or rules that were blatantly unrealistic. I expect I modified our house AD&D rules as much as you modified the original Panzerblitz rules, while staying within the same framework.

It’s ironic that the catalyst for those homegrown mods were subsequent rules sets! 2nd Edition AD&D didn’t address the shortfalls in the original system, but was instead an entirely new game (isn’t TSR on 5th Edition now?). It struck me as a blatant money grab, as I had to invest once again in hundreds of dollars worth of books to stay current (GW is excellent at this sort of manipulation), and had to learn a new system — the whole “old dog, new tricks” conundrum. No thanks.

The same applied to Traveler. When Mega Traveler came out I was quite happy with the system, and how it complimented the original books. I was also taken by the accompanying Fire, Fusion, and Steel design book. The design process was a test of endurance initially, but I eventually found that designing ships and vehicles I would probably never use was in itself an enjoyable exercise.

Recently Mongoose came out with a much anticipated update to Traveler, one I had hoped to support through a series of reviews using my near future combat team models, but when I picked up the new equipment design book I was disappointed. Like every other system, it has been dumbed down to accommodate shorter attention spans. I actually bought a mint copy of the old FFS instead, and dusted off my Mega Traveler boxed set. I also picked up a mint copy of the old Striker 15mm sci-fi massed combat boxed set. I’ll stick with that for sci-fi, thanks.

I’ve tried to play both the fantasy and sci-fi versions of the other guy’s games, but found the setup time to be inordinately long, for a very simplistic system. After half an hour of actual game time I found myself counting ceiling tiles at the store.

Shorter rules doesn’t necessarily mean a simple game. Panzerblitz is a perfect example (when I say ‘Panzerblitz’ I am referring to the entire system). It has infinite replayablity, scales up well into mega-games, and can be adapted to any theater, timeframe, or nationality. And it’s something you can really get stuck into, like Chess. Yet the rules are at most a small booklet, as with AIW, which I believe was the last Avalon Hill version of the game. I could be wrong.

For me, the Golden Age of Gaming means collecting all the wonderful miniatures that are out there now, and using them to breathe new life into all the fabulous iconic game systems from the ’70’s and ’80’s that I still play.